


cut off both my hands

by meingottlieb



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Supernatural
Genre: Altered Mental States, Character Study, Depression, Gen, Mark of Cain!Dean, Sam would make a great companion, Sam/Cas if you squint, Vampires (or are they?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:29:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meingottlieb/pseuds/meingottlieb
Summary: After a moment, Google is staring him in the face, the computer cursor blinking in the search bar in judgement, and Sam realizes there’s nothing he can think of to search about. They’re on their way back to the bunker after an open-and-shut case in small town Indiana; there’s nothing to research. He closes the computer and stares at the winking blue light on its side until his eyes water. Then he puts on some clothes and sits back down after blinking a while.He swallows, turns it back on, and Googles ‘depression’.





	cut off both my hands

**cut off both my hands**

Dean’s foot is already out the door when Sam wakes, his lids heavy and eyes clouded. Dean stops in the doorframe, expression aiming for sheepishness, but his heart isn’t in it.

“I’m, uh, going out for a bit. Bar.” He rubs the side of his head, fingers raking through his hair, and Sam just blinks slowly at him, eyes dull. Dean takes it for acquiescence, and leaves. The Impala rumbles away a minute later, and Sam closes his eyes again, head settling back onto the starched motel pillow.

He stares at the ceiling when sleep eludes him, eyelids sliding half-mast. He finds Australia in a crack in the plaster, and remembers, absently, how he always wanted to go to Sydney in college. It’d been number two on his ‘Places To Go’ list, second only to London; he’d planned to study abroad before law school.That was awhile ago, now.

He falls asleep again, and dreams of blurry seagulls and a grey ocean, deep and cold and full of forgotten memories.

When he wakes again, Dean is still gone, and he has no desire to leave the bed. It’s a weighty feeling, a stony presence that resides in his chest and coalesces heavy and tired in his stomach. He doesn’t have a reason to get out of bed, so why should he? A small voice in the back of his mind whispers that that’s not the point, but he ignores it in favor of the still sense of nothing that keeps him in bed. 

He mashes his face against the pillow and inhales. It stinks. So does his hair. He needs a shower.

A part of him is almost relieved to find a reason to get up. The rest of him just sighs and stumbles into the bathroom, stripping off clothes as he goes. When he’s finished, he’s too grossed out to put on his old sleeping clothes, and too lazy to search through his bag for some clean ones, so he takes out his computer and boots it up in his boxers, damp hair clinging to his neck. After a moment, Google is staring him in the face, the computer cursor blinking in the search bar in judgement, and Sam realizes there’s nothing he can think of to search about. They’re on their way back to the bunker after an open-and-shut case in small town Indiana; there’s nothing to research. He closes the computer and stares at the winking blue light on its side until his eyes water. Then he puts on some clothes and sits back down after blinking a while.

He swallows, turns it back on, and Googles ‘depression’.

Five minutes later, he’s still reading, something sharp and aching spilling in his chest, and it’s all too much and too right. He swallows again, wincing at the ache in his throat, and bookmarks the pages under "Health". Dean, paranoid as he is now, still won't look there. Then he slides the laptop under the bed, slips on clothes, his boots and a coat, then walks outside.

His thoughts are few and aimless, drifting in and out of his head like the cars that whiz by on the nearby road, and before he knows it the sidewalk has led him through town to a flea market, of all things; it’s crammed between an old laundromat and a State Farm insurance agency. The sign above of the shop reads, in cracked blue letters above the door,  _ Something Old, Something New Flea Market.  _ Sounds more like a bridal shop than an antique mall.

He stares up at the sign for a bit, squinting in the drizzling mist, then he walks in.

The store is empty, with a barren, glass encased register, and he belatedly checks the front window, eyes passing over the flickering open sign to confirm that the place is, indeed, open. He pauses in the open hallway for a moment, gaze roaming the small, somewhat cozy shop, and slowly ventures deeper into the place. He shuffles awkwardly among the shelves, his hulking frame made all the more bullish by his china shop surroundings, and his eyes skirt the dusty shelves with more trepidation than anything.

But, the little figures and knick-knacks spin around in his head, kicking up long undisturbed dust, and before long he’s tracing figurines, thumbing through old vinyls, and scooping up a book or two with something foreign and pleased stirring around in his gut. He even finds a few to keep, a couple paperback novels he hasn’t read before, a book on Scandinavian mythology that he can’t  _ believe  _ he’s found, and even a cookbook on how to make healthy foods with different kinds of soda, because Dean would be drawn in whether he wanted to or not, and Sam would get a good kick out seeing him bake with Mr. Pibb. A corner of his mouth lifts at the thought, tentative, and it feels nice.

Then he remembers Dean, now, and it fades.

He’s still going to get the book anyway.

He approaches the register when he’s finished, looking round askance for a clerk, because, already he’s put a concerning amount of stock in how much he wants these wonderfully cheap and dusty books. It’s embarrassing and thrilling at the same time, and he may or may not stroke the spines of each novel in anxiety until a quick glance up gets him an eyeful of person. He would normally deny the mortifying fact that he, a well-seasoned hunter (very, very,  _ very  _ well-seasoned, to put all steaks everywhere to shame), jumped a mile, but he’s far too relieved that a cashier has appeared to do so.

The employee in question is young and floppy and ridiculous. He has that dorky, new hipster hair that falls in his face and, bizarrely, a tweed suit and bowtie. Sam knows he’s a bit out of the loop when it comes to modern fashion and music and the world at large, but even  _ he’s  _ aware that kids-- which, he may not be, but he can’t be older than his mid-twenties-- don’t wear suspenders.

Then again, he’s not a good judge. Or, weirdly, much older than said ‘kids’.

“Howdy,” he says, and he has a ridiculous English accent too, but that’s pretty neat as an image, maybe?, and Sam vacantly hopes that explains everything. All he understands of modern trends is from the Internet, and from his experience, it’s often disturbingly unreliable in terms of getting in the know.

“Hey,” he replies, and he’s slightly pleased to find that his voice isn’t creaky like he half-expected it to be. He hasn’t spoken aloud since yesterday afternoon, to tell Dean to turn up the heat in the car, and when he thinks about it like that, it  _ is _ sort of sad.

“Found some books, I see?” the cashier asks, with customary obviousness, and he smiles a little knowing smile. Sam blinks at him, and nods with a reasonable, obligatory smile of his own.

“Er, yeah.” He settles them on the glass counter and the man reaches over to them, long pale fingers sliding the books closer and flicking over the pages. He lifts a questioning eyebrow towards the cookbook, smiles a bit nostalgically at the novels, and grins outright at the mythology book.

“Ah, the Scandinavians,” he says, amused and oddly exasperated, like he’s remembering a family reunion. “Norway is lovely this time of year. Bit cold, but but then again, that’s not necessarily  _ their  _ fault.” He chuckles, looking up from the books to Sam quickly. “Not that Norway’s weather is something to be blamed for, eh?”

Sam just blinks at him, giving a small, if not mildly bewildered, smile of allowance.

The man rings him up and bags the books, and the cash register gives him the whopping total in glowing green letters. Five bucks even. Sam’s had the bill ready in his pocket since approaching the register.

“One Honest Abe should do it,” the man pipes up, and Sam quietly hands him the fiver. The man smiles with supernatural wattage, grey eyes big and bright, and he slips the bill into the register. Sam nods, scooping up the plastic bag with one hand, and gives the guy his thanks.

“You’re very welcome. Feel free to come back, any time.” His eyes seem to literally glimmer. “However long you may be here.”

Sam doesn’t know how the guy figured he was a tourist, but maybe it’s too obvious. Small town, new face conclusivity. But nevertheless, he waves, assuring the guy he will if he has the time, and surprising himself when he means it.

He walks back to the motel, and reaches it almost too quickly.

xXXx

Dean's still gone, hours later, and he's already read a novel and delved into the histories of Swedish goddesses. The thrill has faded, leaving the weight stagnant and motionless beneath his ribs. He wants to pace, to sleep, but he doesn't. But the idea of researching wards him off with a small current of disgust. So instead he turns on the cheap tv in the corner and tries to laugh at Saturday Night Live, ignoring that he doesn’t get a good deal of the jokes anymore.

Dean stomps in an hour later, angry boots breaking his stupor, and tosses a crinkled copy of the county paper into his lap.

There's been another double murder in the next town over. Another girl is missing.

"Shit. Thought we got 'em all," Sam says, and Dean rolls his glassy eyes.

"Obviously not," he grunts. "Looks like we got another nest."

They leave that night, without bothering to sleep. Sam stares at the shop through the window as they drive out of town. It's closed, now. 

He wonders, strangely, if he'll ever come back.

xXXx

The vampires are different than usual. They nest in smaller groups, instead of as a whole-- they discover that quickly within the next few days, to Dean's irritation and his own mild interest. There are more discrepancies: their blood is grey, for starters, and as Sam stoops to study a seeping, fanged head he's just cleaved from its shoulders, something sits up inside him, waking and curious and familiar. 

The vamps had broken into their motel room quickly-- two of them, stupidly aggressive, freshly turned. Sam and Dean had cut them down with ease; they were too green to put up anything resembling a real fight. The others knew they were there then, that the Winchesters were coming for them. Great.

He wonders, a slow revolution going round and lifting in his mind, as Dean raves at him for something (could be for getting the monster wrong, or for leaving an iced tea in the Impala, he can hardly tell anymore), if this is what he's been missing. Originality? No. Newness. A change. Something different than this, over and over, grey, grey monotony over bleak, swallowing ache.

This is a start, and he clings to it with both hands.

He starts paying attention to Dean's angry ramblings, erasing the guilty go-to from his face, the one he usually wore when his brother got this way-- honest (because who is he but a walking giant of guilt?), but also because Dean took it for compliance. If he looks guilty enough, Dean will stop rubbing it in for a while. It turns out Dean  _ is  _ mad about the case (surprise) and Sam honestly, truly can't help it: he rolls his eyes.

It feels real.

Dean stops mid-sentence, and Sam nearly giggles (oh god) as he raises his own eyebrows, as if to say  _ yeah, and? _

It's hysterical, light and free space, and the weight lifts like a sheet, billowing on its descent and suddenly he has  _ oxygen _ . Dean is temporarily frozen before his features mold dark, eyes heavy with judgement that even Sam finds melodramatic.

"You think this is funny, Sam?" he asks, using that voice.  _ I am Dean Winchester, vanquisher of demons, hear me and tremble in guilt, for you have wronged me and I shall forever remind you so (especially you, Sam). _

It's a trademarked voice, perfectly patented and nuanced over time, and Sam has to look away a moment to control the obviously insane urge to burst out laughing. Dean takes it as a moment of shame, thinking Sam can't meet his eyes, and leaps upon it.

"We have bigger things to worry about that a new fucking monster showing its face," he says, and his voice has a black, eager undercurrent, one so familiar since the Mark first blazed on his arm. It ripples against Sam’s skin like ice water, to hear just how wrong it is his brother’s voice. "Abaddon,  _ Metatron.  _ We can't afford to fuck up now. Cas is still fucking searching for the bastard, but he probably won't find him any time soon, and Abaddon is about to take the goddamn Iron Throne-- and now there's this to deal with?" He points accusingly at the two corpses on the carpet with his still-dripping knife, and Sam straightens, the light in his chest morphing into something he could call justified anger.

It's been awhile since he’s felt justified in anything.

"How is this _ my  _ fault?" There's a whimsical little note of stubbornness in his tone, embracing his tone like an old friend, and he almost smiles. He eases into it, the honesty of it, and he’s not angry, not yet. "We both thought it was vamps. Looks like it's not, so we'll just deal with it. We can kill them with what we got, so..." He lets his words trail off, leading, as Dean's eyes widen and narrow, almost suspicious, and  _ God,  _ Sam has not missed that look. In fact, it swells in his chest, angry and painful and unfair, and even then it's what he needs, building on him like armor.

"So?” Dean practically barks out, and he shakes his head at Sam, disbelieving. “You’re supposed to be on top of this, this is your job--”

“My  _ job?”  _ A laugh punches from his lungs, surprised, but it aches when he finds that he isn’t, isn’t surprised at all. In fact, he feels like he’s been waiting for it. Still, his disbelieving grin sticks, foolish and unrelenting and fresh with hurt. “Since when is this my  _ job?  _ This is you and me, Dean, killing monsters like we always have. We  _ both  _ do the work, since when is it my  _ fault _ ?”

Dean stares at him, eyes locked on that stubborn smile, and a foreign anger shifts and slides behind his eyes, a shadowy thing behind a curtain of green. He bares his teeth, for a moment, overtaken by something he can only call  _ feral,  _ and Sam stills like prey.

"Since  _ now _ .”

His voice is a growl, full of a jagged menace. His lips curl back, animal in relish. His knuckles go white on the hilt of his knife, anticipatory. He says nothing else, but Sam hears it anyway. The bloodlust.

There’s a stretched line of silence, vibrating, but then the monster disappears from Dean’s eyes and he’s just there, taut and dark and clenched teeth, with the space of all he was going to say tearing a hole in quiet. Sam knows then, that it can’t continue.

A moment hangs in the air where his brother blinks, shoulders slumping in a brief moment of surprise-- at himself, at his own voice-- before the light in his eyes disappears back harsh shadow.

“Just figure it out,” Dean says, gaze shifting away as his voice goes rough and quiet, and he turns away, stepping over fallen body as he all but flees from the room. Sam stares after him, and thinks something he hasn’t thought in a while.

_ I don’t want to do this anymore. _

_ (Not with him.) _

xXXx

They find another nest, in a barn just outside of town, and torch the place. Inside, there was only a few of them; they weren’t in time to save the missing girl. Sam feels it, with a greater ache, than before. The weight is numbness, grey and heavy, and the more he fights it the more vulnerable he is. He doesn’t think about that, or, doesn’t want to. He hopes it’s worth it.

When they get back to the motel room, Sam has no intention of staying, so he leaves. Dean stares at him as he goes, eyes storming and jaw locked on sharp words-- rage and regret twisting his features into something hateful-- but Sam saves him the energy and gets out before Dean gets the chance to share them.

It's not quite five, but the wind is night-cold, biting and wet through the drizzle of rain, so Sam looks around town for a few places to browse in, killing time in a way he hasn't had the opportunity for in a long time. It's a bit lonely walking the sidewalks, but it's been a few years since he's felt the kind of lonely that could be solved with companionship. There are many kinds of lonely. He’s well acquainted with all of them.

He almost calls Cas. It's a strange idea: he's never spoken to the angel, well, pointlessly. There's always been something urgent to skirt around: Dean, himself, evil, sometimes (often) a combination. Cas is busy, hunting Metatron. There’s no reason to reach out to him, and that’s partly why Sam wants to do it.

He pauses in the street and slides out his phone. Brings up messaging. Taps "Cas" among the threads and notes the last message, from weeks ago.

6:50 SUN:  _ I will notify you with news if I learn more of Metatron. _

6:51 SUN:  _ Ok. Talk to you later. _

Typical.

It feels awkward, and he doesn't know why. Ever since Cas had helped him with the spell, things had been odd between them. The night plays behind his eyes, a slideshow of flipping images, and something twists inside him. It feels...not wrong. 

_ "This is the part where you hug back." _

Suddenly, he wants the contact. He feels...like a thank you is in order. Something.

_ "Nothing is worth losing you." _

With the weight subsiding in his chest, the words spin through him. When he'd first heard them, he'd been shocked. So much that he'd shoved them aside upstairs, like a trunk of old clothes. Now, it seemed so huge. So huge, and overwhelmingly, Sam is desperate to know if Cas still means it, if he still thinks of Sam so kindly when his own brother doesn't, or if it was a fluke. A mistake, a slip, if Cas thinks of him as just Sam Winchester again, not Sam-- Dean’s brother, only, and otherwise not his concern.

He texts a wild  _ how's it going,  _ and almost breaks his phone in the process. He thought this was good, that fighting the weight was good, but now it's plummeting inside him, free falling,  _ afraid,  _ and Sam remembers just how much worse it can feel.

He looks up, eyes suddenly stinging, and a sign sways in the misty breeze.

_ Something Borrowed, Something Blue Flea Market. _

His hand convulses briefly on the phone, and his eyes dart to the window, searching. Okay. So that’s weird enough to set his nerves on high alert _.  _ It could be coincidence, but since when is  _ that  _ ever a thing in his life? The store, a twin of its counterpart in the town over, is dark inside, but the open sign is swinging in the window, as if it was just disturbed.

With the heaviness of his gun in his jacket he walks up to the storefront and opens the door, cautiously. The familiar sound of a struggle immediately reaches his ears, glass shattering through the darkened, identical shop, and Sam quickly skulks forward, hand reaching for his weapon. There’s a flash of movement and a body is thrown from behind a shelf to land on another, sending figurines and dishes crashing to the floor, and Sam rips his gun free. The man from before, the cashier, slides to the floor, and one of the new vamps towers over him, teeth extended and eyes flashing hungrily in the dark. Sam doesn’t hesitate as the vamp reaches for the cashier; he fires twice, catching the chest and the head each once, and it sends the vamp stumbling back. He charges forward then, barreling into it and throwing it down. It hisses, grey blood leaking down its brow, and Sam fires again, straight into its face. Grey explodes across the floor, and it goes still. He looks around quickly for something finish it off with; in the corner, below a rack of old DVDs, sits a rusting gardening hoe ($10.99) and Sam scoops it up.

It works well enough.

xXXx

Five minutes later, the body and its accompanying head are shoved in a closet and Sam’s dragging the cashier out the back, in case the shots are reported to the police. Luckily for him, the guy is as as light a goddamn feather; Sam drags him out the back alley like the cleanup for a mafioso, and really, he shouldn’t have had that Tarantino marathon last night.

He doesn’t make it far. Instead he props the guy up against the side of the next building and stares at a blue phone box, plopped right in the middle of the alley like it was  _ parked  _ there. He gawks at it, gaze flickering from the box to the floppy cashier up against the wall. 

_ This is worse than fucking Snooki. _

xXXx

He'd wanted something new, a voice in his head reminds.  _ You get what you ask for.  _ This is just weird enough for him to be completely confused by everything, but maybe he'll take what he can get.

The cashier wakes up, after Sam helps. Really, Sam doesn’t kick him that hard, he’s just really impatient about it, and maybe his foot slips a bit. At any rate, it does the trick, and he only feels a little guilty when the guy wakes with a gasp. Well, more like a yelp, eyes popping wide like a cartoon character, and he flops on the ground for a fish for a moment before focusing on Sam with boggled, ridiculous eyes.

“Vampires!” he yelps, and suddenly, Sam feels a lot less suspicious. Because,  _ honestly.  _ Look at this idiot. Sam stoops to the ground in front of him, knife in hand, and the guy just blinks owlishly at him.

“Oh, hello. I remember you.” He smiles, and if Sam didn’t know better, he’d say the guy was an idiot. But he measures the mind behind the mask and those grey eyes, glimpses intelligence, and knows better.

“Yeah. Hi. Care to explain?”

He is impatient, still. He doesn’t really know why, this is the most fun he’s had in  _ weeks,  _ and that’s pretty sad. His eyes flick to the blue phone box, and okay, maybe he’s lying to himself. It’s pretty cool, too.

“Explain what?” the guy asks, fluttering eyelashes at him, and Sam just blinks, slowly. The guy blushes and chuckles, sheepish, and Sam almost wants to put his knife away. He doesn’t, but only barely.

“Er...that? Or...the shop? Probably the shop. Maybe the box, my box, maybe that-- or the vampires, actually, not really vampires, long story, although you probably want to hear it, but you know I have a feeling this conversation will go a lot smoother if I just get up and show you without any stabbing, that would be splendid--”

Sam holds up a finger, and the ocean wave of babble stutters to a halt. The guy almost looks surprised, like he was entitled a good ramble, but one look at Sam’s face and he goes still. It’s almost funny, and Sam almost laughs, but he has more integrity than that. He hopes so, anyway, so far this interrogation would be more in place in a Monty Python skit.

_ I’ve paid for an interrogation, I expect to get one! _

“I take it this isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve come across, then?” the cashier asks, with a wry little smile, and really, Sam should give up right now.

“Not even close.” He pauses. “Not vampires?”

“Correct, they’re not actually vampires, despite first impression! In truth, they’re mutants from--”

Sam holds up another finger, and shakes his head.

_ You get what you ask for,  _ the voice says again, pleased with itself, and what is this, the Twilight Zone?

“Really, it’d be better if I just showed you,” he says helpfully, leaning a floppy head towards the softly glowing box beside them, and madly,  _ idiotically,  _ Sam almost says, “sure”. 

Instead,  _ worse, _ he helps the guy to his feet and puts his knife away. The cashier smiles at him, gratefully and a little proud, like a PTA mom, and it makes Sam want to have a sit down.

He follows the man into the box instead.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song 'cut off my hands' by chad vangaalen.
> 
> i always loved the idea of sam being a companion; he loved adventure but always wanted to do more with his life. i think the doctor would love him.


End file.
